20 Truths:  Byakuya and Senbonzakura
by Vivienne Grainger - Bleach
Summary: The man and his sword.  Toss a coin to see who's prettier:  it's one of the things they never talk about.  Here are some more.


1. Byakuya Kuchiki has many pieces of knowledge that Senbonzakura has access to, but chooses not to be involved with (boooooring).

2. Senbonzakura has many pieces of knowledge she does not share, nor allow Byakuya to know she possesses (damned priiiiiiiiiiide).

3. She knows, for instance, that Bykuya's legendary coldness is not a front, but has unfortunately become the actual man.

4. Partly this is because, between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, Senbonzakura has wished nine hundred fourteen times to cut down some person who betrayed her wielder's friendship.

5. This is her wish because every time it happens, it hurts Byakuya anew, and it leaves him just a little bit colder.

6. Renji Abarai is someone who has experienced Byakuya's coldness firsthand. Wielder and blade, however, have entirely different pictures of Renji Abarai. To Byakuya, Renji is someone young and foolish, who has not yet learned the value of being serious. (Life, after all, is serious: at least it is for Byakuya.)

7. He is also the best lover Byakuya has ever had. By default, this makes him the best lover Senbonzakura has ever had, as well.

8. She's pretty sure she will not be telling Byakuya this any time soon.

9. Senbonzakura knows that Byakuya has a microscopic concept of "fun," and Renji's is rather well-developed. This is not the only reason she's very glad the redhead has been welcomed into Byakuya's bed, but it is one of the biggest.

10. To Senbonzakura, Renji Abarai is the most gorgeous young colt she's ever seen in her life. She understands that, despite the considerable effort he puts into achieving that look of his, Renji has almost no vanity: his long hair takes little upkeep, and his tatts are a scrapbook of his achievements. The _incredible body_ the kid sports is actually a necessity for Renji to be able to do what he wants with his life: be a fukutaichou-level hunter of Hollows, Arrancar, Espada, Gillians, Menos, and whatever else may come his way that needs eradication at the point of a sword.

11. Byakuya, subject to vanity of his own, believes that Renji is vain. Senbonzakura knows that one day he will learn the truth, probably with some kind of comeuppance attached, and _she can't wait for that to happen_.

12. As she began to know her swordsman's lover better, Senbonzakura realized that while he is an uncouth Rukongai gutter-rat by birth, Renji is just as noble in cast of mind as Byakuya.

13. Senbonzakura therefore tried having tea with the baboon and the snake. It wasn't a success. Baboons cannot grasp teacups without accidentally shattering them seventeen times, and snakes turn over and spill cups momentarily filled with (eventually) entire pots of expensive tea trying to stick their tongues into them. Now they meet for bento occasionally: chicken for her, vegetarian for the baboon, and mouse with a side of rat, no rice, for the snake, if you're wondering. (Normally Zabimaru just orders one heavily-laden bento and divides it up between himself. -Only for a nue can that sentence make sense.)

14. Tea with Sode no Shirayuki went better, although snow melts when it falls into tea. Now she and Senbonzakura have a chat two or three times a week; Senbonzakura knows that in the late summer it's quite cooling to meet Sode and have a little bit of winter spend the hot hours of afternoon with you.

15. Senbonzakura wishes, however, that her own wielder would get the stick out of his butt and actually make overtures of friendship to Sode's girl, for kamis' sake.

16. Byakuya has never really mastered the hot temper that so bedeviled his younger days. Senbonzakura, while understanding that it would benefit him to do so, actually rather enjoys the ride when his temper rises, and he attempts to exert a control he knows he cannot entirely rely upon.

17. Byakuya's temper is exacerbated by the fact that he lives a life of obligations to his clan which were thrust upon him at birth. The obligations he has assumed as taichou of the Sixth Division are burdens that he chose, and as such he finds them much less onerous. So does Senbonzakura; they, after all, are what she was born for.

18. Do you want to watch the most beautiful man in Soul Society completely and irrevocably lose his cool with all his clothes on and his hair in perfect order? Break a rule in Byakuya Kuchiki's presence. Kill somebody who isn't a Hollow, or use his first name inappropriately: any rule will do. Byakuya's immoderate reaction to rule-breaking should hit him over the head with a clue-by-four that something's amiss here. But it's Senbonzakura who knows that this man should be in therapy, or at the very least, anger-management classes. See item #2 above.

19. Byakuya is a candidate for anger-management classes because he has had to follow so many rules, for so much of his life, that seeing someone else experience a freedom he cannot enjoy himself enrages him through and through. He is not aware of this process within himself. Senbonzakura watches it with compassion when it occurs, and keeps her reaction from him, because it would only further inflame her swordsman.

20. But that is why there are things Senbonzakura does not share with Byakuya Kuchiki.


End file.
